Localism Bill

My Lords, I gave a similar commitment in Committee to consider the amendments which aimed at removing overly prescriptive and complicated arrangements on necessary regulation-making powers in order to simplify and strengthen local government’s scrutiny arrangements. Having considered the issues carefully, including with the Centre for Public Scrutiny, I am pleased to bring forward amendments which achieve a number of these aims. On the removal of unnecessary restrictions on referral of matters by non-committee members, Amendments 134 to 139 remove prescription about matters which may be referred to a scrutiny committee by councillors who are not members of the scrutiny committee. In future, these councillors will not be restricted to the referral of local government matters only. Instead, they may refer a wider range of matters to scrutiny committees for consideration, thus enhancing their role as advocates of their local communities. In terms of referral of matters to the scrutiny committee, the amendments broaden the range of issues that can be brought before that committee by non-committee members. It will, of course, remain for the scrutiny committee to decide what course of action is appropriate following any referral, as is the case now. With regard to local improvement targets and local area agreements, Amendments 140, 142 and 147 remove the link between local government scrutiny and local improvement targets in local area agreements. Partner authorities will be required to have regard to the reports and recommendations of scrutiny committees that relate to any of their functions exercised in relation to the committee’s area or residents of that area. This empowers local authorities to hold partner authorities to account for wider activities they undertake, thus ensuring that local people have a say on matters that affect them. On the simplification of local government scrutiny arrangements, our remaining Amendments, 132, 133, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 150 and 164, place the scrutiny committees of non-unitary district councils into an equivalent position to those of other authorities. They enable scrutiny committees in non-unitary district councils to hold partner authorities to account, and at the same time the amendments greatly simplify the scrutiny provisions and remove delegated powers of the Secretary of State. I hope that noble Lords will agree that these amendments represent an improvement to the provisions, and will therefore be happy to accept them.